The Price of Perfection
by A plus
Summary: When a Death Eater and an Auror begin a dangerous affair, Snape finds himself in the middle, trying to protect them both.
1. Chapter 1

She slammed the door of her apartment and threw her auror badge across the room. It hit the wall and landed on the floor with a clang. She leaned against the door, and slid down to the ground, trying to stop herself from shaking. The stress of her job was getting to a point that she couldn't handle anymore. She was tired of having to prove herself each and every day. But then again, hadn't she been doing that for the last ten years? Hadn't she been doing that since she first set foot in Hogwarts?

She had proved them wrong though. She had graduated first in her class with the highest N.E.W.T. scores ever. She had become an auror despite comments about how all her book knowledge didn't actually mean that she knew how to fight. They said she had no street smarts, no coordination. They said she could never keep up with her male counterparts. They said she wouldn't last a week. Well, she had lasted a week, she had lasted three whole years in fact. And she was good. She was damn good at her job. But no matter how well she did, she never felt like they quite accepted her.

She felt like she had to be perfect, ever single day. There was no room for error. Because she was perfect, the others loved to see her fail. She had advanced faster than others who had started with her and they were jealous of her. She dealt with their comments daily. It was much like school where she was tormented for being a know-it-all.

And then there was the job itself. It was a stressful job. There was constant danger and they always had to be alert. A couple of Aurors snapped pretty early on. Others had found a way to deal with stress, but she was on the verge of breaking. She had felt herself little by little losing control of her magic. She could feel is crackle around her, beyond her ability to reign it in. A dog had startled her during a raid and her magic had snapped. A green light had jumped from her body and killed it. She shuddered at the thought. How much longer would this go on? How much worse would it get? She was putting others at risk. There was no telling when her magic would fire off instinctually without her permission. She was putting everyone around her at risk.

She needed to find a way to relieve the crushing stress. Taking her typical route, she had researched the problem. All sources she had found had told her that there was nothing she could do magically to get her magic back under control. The books stated that in the case of exceptionally powerful wizards and witches, their magic was tied to their mind and their emotions and severe mental or emotional instability could cause them to lose control of the magic. The more powerful the witch or wizard, the harder time they would have controlling their magic.

She hadn't reported her loss of control to the Ministry or the Order. She would be suspended. She couldn't be suspended. Harry needed her. She hadn't told anyone about her problems. She felt so alone, but who could she tell? There were the Order members, of course, and Harry and Ron, but they expected her to be perfect too. They relied on her perfection and she couldn't let them see her like this.

Harry and Ron had gone out drinking with the rest of the guys from their squadron tonight. She, or course, had not been invited. It wasn't that they didn't want her to come, it was just no one thought little-miss-perfect would want to get drunk. The aurors weren't supposed to get drunk in public, even off duty, and they probably thought she would report them.

She could tell the other guys used these nights to get drunk and relax and let go of the stress of the job. That was exactly what she needed. She peeled off her auror uniform. Her black shirt was stiff from dried blood of a woman that she had not been able to save today. After a quick shower, she threw on a black skirt and sweater and started off for Diagon Alley. There was a pub at the far end of the street. It had always seemed a little sketchy to her, but as far as she knew, no one she knew ever went there. That was perfect. She just wanted to get drunk by herself tonight with no one who would recognize her. She just wanted a night off, a night off of being perfect and responsible and smart. A night off from being Hermione Granger.


	2. Chapter 2

The bar was dark and dusty. Many wizards in there wore full hooded robes to hide their identity. She felt pretty sure that she wouldn't run into anyone from work in here. In fact, she felt that this sort of place would be more likely to attract the sort of people that the aurors were hunting than the people that she worked with.

After a few drinks, she felt the stress subside a little, but it was still pretty intense. She had another and then headed down the dark hallway to get to the restroom. Halfway down the hallway the drinking caught up to her and she stumbled, only to be caught by a dark hooded figure who was passing her. He grabbed her as she fell and she ended up in his arms. She couldn't see his face, but she felt like it was the same hooded man who kept feeling was watching her all night from across the bar.

He started letting go of her, but his hands brushed slowly across her body as her withdrew them. She thought he was going to turn and leave when all of a sudden he took another step towards her and leaned in to kiss her. She wasn't sure why she let him. She couldn't even see his face. But tonight was the night she was not being herself, tonight was the night she was the girl who kisses mysterious wizards in the back of bars. He kissed her as she had never been kissed before and she let his hands roam around her body. She felt better than she had felt in a long time. His hands made their way under her skirt and up between her thighs. She was no virgin, but it had certainly been a long time since she had been touched by a man. And this man, this man certainly knew how to touch a woman. She had had a few flings a few years ago. But now, most of the men she knew were from work, and she certainly couldn't let them see her like this. And she worked so much that it was hard to find time to meet new men. But this man had his fingers inside of her and was bringing her close, so close to something that she hadn't had in years. She wanted more, but felt that she should at least know who he was.

"Please, more," she gasped and reached up to lower his hood.

As his hood fell around his neck, she gasped again, but this time in surprise. This was no stranger. This was a man she knew, a man she had not seen in three years. This was a man who hated her, a man who she hated. This was a man who was a suspected death eater. This was a man who looked down on people like her. This was a man who was touching her and making her want things she hadn't wanted in a long time.

Why was he doing this? What was he planning? She looked into his grey eyes expecting to find malice but found only pure lust. His fingers were still moving inside of her. Her brain was telling her that this was dangerous, a very dangerous situation, but her body was telling her that she needed this, that this was the best she had felt in years. She reached forward and unbuttoned his pants. He raised an eyebrow at her as if to ask if she was sure she wanted this.

"Yes." Oh Merlin, yes.

He pushed her roughly around so that she was facing the wall and leaning up against it. He pulled up her skirt and entered her from behind. She moaned as he started thrusting.

"Harder."

He complied.

They both stood there for a moment staring at each other and panting, not sure what to say, what to do.

"This….never happened." She blurted out, turning and exiting the bar so fast that she was almost running. He leaned against the wall and watched her go.

She knew that she should feel bad about what had happened that night. She knew that it should be eating her up inside that she had had sex with an enemy in a bar. But she felt good, she felt better than she had felt in a long time. Whatever that was, with him, it had helped her relieve some of the stress that had been crushing her. She stopped snapping at people at work, she stopped jumping every time something moved out of the corner of her eye, she stopped breaking down in tears every night when she got back to her apartment. She wanted to tell herself that it wasn't because of him, but she knew that was a lie. Whatever had happened between them that night had helped her hold onto her sanity, had helped her reign in control of her magic. She couldn't explain it, but it had.

She was leaving the bookstore, her arms full of new purchases when a hand grabbed her and pulled her back into the shadows. She was about to reach for her wand when she heard a familiar voice.

"I keep thinking about you. About that night. I want more. I need more."

"No."

"Tell me you didn't enjoy it."

"It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

"I'm an auror."

"I know."

"You're a death eater."

'I am aware"

"Well, then one of us might put our job before our other needs, might betray the other. It would be dangerous to continue"

"What if there was a way? A way for it to be safe? A way for it to be just sex, without the war coming into it?"

"Without the war? Without the WAR? We both grew up into this war. We both grew up because of it. Nothing exists except in relation to the war. The war is everything and we are on opposite sides of it. You can't pretend that doesn't matter."

"For ten minutes, it didn't."

This silenced her, so he continued, "If there was a way we could continue without either of us putting ourselves or our causes in danger…"

"There isn't."

She pulled free of his grasp and disapparated. He grinned to himself. Sure, she had turned him down, but he had seen the wheels in her head start thinking. And when that girl started thinking, she could do anything.


	3. Chapter 3

Months passed without seeing him. Her job started to get to her again. She felt as though she was wound so tightly that she would explode at any second. She started slipping, making little mistakes. She was good at covering them up, but they were getting bigger and bigger and she couldn't hide them forever. Her magic started slipping, not being there when she needed it and then lashing out at unwanted times. She had hit Ron with a curse when it unexpectedly snapped from her palm. People were starting to notice that something was going on with her. They were starting to talk. She needed to get back in control and there was only one way she knew how. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed him. She needed him again if she was going to stay in control of her magic, of her sanity, if she was going to be there for the people who needed her. 

He was exiting the bar when a hand grabbed him from behind and apparated him before he could react. A split-second later, he found himself in a small bedroom. He spun around to face his kidnapper. He found himself with Hermione Granger's wand pointed at his face, he instinctively reached for his and when it wasn't there, noticed it in her other hand.

"So here's the deal," she began sharply, "this cabin in untraceable, unplottable, it has complex wards that prevent anyone but the two of us from entering and that prevent either of us from mortally wounding the other while we are here. Also, no restraining spell or apparition blocks can be used here, so either of us will be free to leave at any time." He had to admit that he was impressed by her thoroughness.

She tossed him a silver medallion on a chain and showed him a similar one around her neck.

"If I hold mine for a minute, yours will become warm and then turn into a portkey to bring you here. The same works in reverse."

He put the chain around his neck.

"Well, now that we have that worked out," he said as he started to unbutton his shirt.

She put her wand away and proceeded to do the same.

They met about once a week. Few words were spoken. In their time at Hogwarts, there had never been any shortage of insults to hurl at one another, but now, it seemed as though everything had already been said. She knew he thought she was a filthy mudblood and he knew she thought he was an arrogant prick. There was really nothing more to say.

Severus Snape waited in his office at the Dark Lord's manner. His fingers tapping the top of the desk. The Dark Lord was a master legimmens, but he was a busy man, he had things to do. Therefore Severus was relegated to conducting the routine legimmency checks on the death eaters and reporting anything of importance. He hated seeing the sick twisted memories that these wizards had, but it gave him the perfect opportunity to gather information for the order and to control the flow of information to the Dark Lord.

He was waiting for his godson, the boy he had hoped to guide away from the darkness, but had, so far as he could tell, failed miserably. The boy opened the door and strode confidently into the room, sitting down in the chair facing his desk. Draco placed his hands on Snape's desk, lifted his head and opened his eyes, granting Snape full access to his memories. Snape sifted through them routinely until he felt the gentle nudge of occulmency. His godson had never tried to hide anything from him before. He probed further and was further nudged away.

"Draco, you can't hide anything from me." He said sternly, "You can show me or I can force you."

He felt the young man's walls drop and images flooded towards him, images of his godson the death eater in some very compromising positions with his former student, an Auror, an Order member, oh Merlin. He pulled out of the young man's mind and did nothing to conceal his shock.

"I…."

"Draco, how could you?"

"I…please don't say anything. This has nothing to do with the war. I don't care for the mudblood. It's just sex, amazing sex. I am not betraying our Lord."

"And her? Has she given you any information?"

"No. None. We don't exactly talk much," she young man smiled slyly. We meet in a cabin that is warded so that neither can harm the other."

Smart girl, Snape thought, yet still so incredibly stupid.

"Severus, please don't report this."

Snape stared at him a few long moment, contemplating how much to reveal, how much of himself to risk in order to help this young man.

Finally he started, "This isn't the first time this has happened, you know, an affair between an Auror and a Death Eater."

Draco raised an eyebrow at him. "You?"

"Yes. A long time ago. Her name was Lily Evans, Lily….Potter."

Draco coughed, "Are you telling me that you're Harry Potter's father?"

"No. NO! Of course not. Ha. Of course not. It was over by then."

Draco opened his mouth but then closed it, deciding it was better to let the man finish his story.

"It makes it hotter doesn't it? Knowing that it's forbidden, knowing that you're on opposite sides of a war, knowing that in any other circumstances you would be trying to kill each other. She married Potter…to try to forget about me, to try to make herself stop…but it didn't work. I was the one who told the Dark Lord about the prophecy. I didn't know that it was related to her. I didn't know the repercussions of what I was doing at the time, but indirectly, I caused her death. I live with that every day. I have lived with that every single day for the last two decades."

Severus stared at him, waiting for the meaning of his words to sink in. Draco stood up.

"It's not like I love her or anything. It's not like I care about her. She means nothing to me. If she is killed, I'll never think of her again. It's just sex, that's it. I've just never found a woman who could keep up with me, who could satisfy me like she can."

"Every move you make for our side could directly or indirectly cause her death. Could you live with that?"

"I have to. What choice do I have?"

Choice? He wanted to scream at the boy, you always have a choice. You could choose to turn your back to the Dark Lord, to get out of the life your father has planned for you. But he couldn't say that, he couldn't say any of that. This man standing before him was not only his godson, but was also a death eater. Severus had to keep his cover; he had to appear loyal at all costs.

"I have no desire you bring you harm. Your secret is safe with me. I trust you know the repercussions if this little affair is discovered."

He watched his godson leave the room before putting his head in his hands. This was bad, this was very bad. The Order needed Hermione Granger, so he had to protect her. He had a duty to protect his godson too and he knew that he could protect neither as long as they were together.

The sun shone through the dusty windowpanes and she sipped her orange juice. Across the table, her best friends joked and ate. It was a rare occasion that all three of them had a day off together. Not that many years ago, sharing breakfast with her friends was routine, but now she considered it a luxury. Her moment of contentment was shattered as the door was flung open and a dark figure stepped into the kitchen.

"Miss Granger, a word."

She followed him upstairs into the library and he warded the door behind them. It had been years since she had been his student, but being alone with him always made her feel like a scared little first year in his office about to be reprimanded. This wasn't helped by the fact that he stood facing her, arms folded across his chest.

"Miss Granger, in my duties as a Death Eater, searching the mind of Mr. Draco Malfoy, I stumbled across some rather disturbing images."

"Well, he is a Death Eater, I would imagine that his mind would contain many disturbing images." She played dumb and tried to hide the fact that she was panicking. Shit, shit, shit, shit. How much did he know? How much had he seen? A slight blush began to color her face. He leaned in closer to her and she could feel his breath on her ear.

"The specific images to which I am referring involved a certain virginal Gryffindor princess willingly straddling a known Death Eater. Multiple times. In multiple positions. Do you know the images I might be referring to, or do I need to be more specific? Do I need to describe them in more graphic detail?"

Her blush deepened.

"No. That is quite enough."

"I take it no one knows about this little arrangement."

"No, no one."

"You are putting yourself in danger. You are putting the Order in danger."

"I have a cottage where we meet, carefully warded. The danger is minimal. I would never do anything to compromise the Order."

"It needs to stop."

"It's not that easy."

He opened her mouth to tell her that it was that easy, but she interrupted him.

"You of all people should know."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I know about you and Lily."

He rounded the table towards her.

"You couldn't."

"I found Lily's diary in Harry's vault at Gringotts. It was moved there after her death. I read it and decided it was better if Harry never did. I would appreciate your silence in exchange for mine." He would have been surprised that rule-abiding Hermione Granger would resort to blackmail if he hadn't used up all his surprise on the images he had seen in Draco's mind. She moved away from him and over to a cabinet in the far corner. She muttered a series of complex charms and it opened. Reaching inside she removed a small book and returning to where he stood, placed it in his hand. He gripped it tightly and placed it within his robes.

"Then you know the danger you're in. You know what happened to her. We were involved and she died because of it."

"She died in spite of it, not because of it. If you hadn't been involved with her, you still would have reported the prophecy and she still would have died. The affair had nothing to do with any of it."

She turned to leave.

"He doesn't care about you. He has never cared about anyone but himself and he's certainly not going to start with a mudblood like you."

"I know that," she turned her head back to look at him, "I know he doesn't care. I don't care about him either. It's just sex, that's it. I'm a big girl and I can take care of myself. I don't need you sticking your big nose where it doesn't belong. I just need you to keep your mouth shut."

With those final words, she left the room and he sat down in the armchair to contemplate this girl that he had thought he knew. Up until this point, he had a pretty clear picture of her in his mind. To him, she was still the annoying 11-year-old know-it-all waving her arm in his class. Sure she had gotten older, taller, more mature, but he had assumed that she had stayed more-or-less the same. He had relied on her to be the voice of reason to Harry, to be the logical one, to be in control, to always make the responsible choices. Looking back on it, he should have known this was coming, he really should have known. He should have seen how similar she was to Lily. They both had a need to prove themselves as muggleborns, to appear perfect at all times. It seemed that this perfection had a price, that all the repression found it's outlet in illicit affairs with dangerous wizards. It wasn't just the fact that she was sleeping with Draco that shocked him so thoroughly, it was the specific images he had seen. It was the reckless passion, the roughness of the sex. It had brought back so many memories. He reached into his robes and rubbed the smooth leather of the diary cover.


	4. Chapter 4

Leaning against the cool tile wall of the shower, she let the steaming hot water fall on her body. The water on the floor of the shower ran pink with the blood that was being washed off her body. Luckily none of it was hers. She stared absently into the spray of the shower and contemplated the events of the night. They had suffered some losses, but the battle had been considered a success due to the killing of a very important target. She had been right there, she had watched as Harry had killed Lucius Malfoy.

Shutting off the hot water, she reached for a towel and stepped out of the shower. With a flick of her wrist, he blood-soaked clothes were set in the sink to be cleaned later. She picked up her medallion to bring it into the bedroom, but as soon as it touched her skin, she noticed it was hot. Tonight? He was calling her tonight? Would he want to sleep with a mudblood the same night his mudblood-hating father was killed? Was this some sick, twisted form of revenge on her? On Harry? Or was this a final act of defiance against his father?

She apparated to the cabin, telling herself the whole time that she really should not be doing this, that she should really know better. He was already there, waiting for her. They stood for a moment, facing each other from across the room, neither one moving. His eyes were dark with anger.

"Draco, I…"

"Don't." He interrupted her, "Don't say anything. Take off your clothes and get on the bed."

She complied. He pushed her roughly onto her stomach and proceeded to thrust into her harshly. When he was finished, he pulled out of her and walked to the window without so much as a glance in her direction. She went into the bathroom to give herself a moment to recover. When she came out, he was still by the window, staring out of it. He was gripping the windowsill so hard that his knuckles were white. She stopped behind him and whispered, "I'm leaving now," but he made no indication that he had heard her or even noticed her presence in the room.

She apparated to the front steps of Number 12 Grimmauld Place and gingerly opened the door, being careful not to make any noise. She slowly shut it behind her and only let out the breath she was holding when she heard the quiet click of the door latch. But no sooner had her hand left the knob, then her arm was roughly grabbed and she was dragged into the dark sitting room.

"Where were you?" a voice hissed at her in the darkness.

Her heart started pounding rapidly in her chest.

He repeated it again, annunciating every word.

"Where. Were. You?"

He stepped out of the shadows and into the firelight, revealing a figure she knew all too well. But even in her days as his student, even when she had seen him reprimand her, or Harry for that matter, even then she had never seen anger in his eyes quite like this.

"Did you go to him?"

"That's none of your business," she eyed him defiantly.

"None of my business? None of my business? I've been sitting here all night waiting for you to return, not knowing if you would even return. I've been sitting here sick with worry. How can you be so stupid? You knew what happened tonight, but you went to him anyway. You knew how dangerous it would be, how dangerous he is, and still you went. Tonight, of all nights, you went to him. You stupid, stupid girl."

He stopped yelling at her and sunk down to the couch, leaning forward to put his head in his hands. She sat down next to him. She had no idea that he was this protective of her.

"Severus," he looked up at his name, "I need him."

He placed his head back into his hands, covering his face.

"Before him…I was losing control of my magic."

He looked up at her suddenly.

"You _what_?" He knew how serious this was, how dangerous.

She told him the whole story, of her breakdown and how he had been the only thing that had helped her control the feeling that her whole life was crushing down onto her and by escaping this feeling even just for a few hours a few times a week, she had been able to reign it back it, to get back in control. Her former professor listened in silence as she told her story.

"You should have told someone."

"There was no one to tell."

"You could have told me."

"And have the teacher who tormented me for seven years taunt me more for not even being able to control my own magic?" She smiled at him. He knew it was true.

"But tonight? Why did you have to go to him tonight when he was so angry, so unpredictable?"

She sighed, "because he needed me."

Severus shot her a wary look.

"He needed me. The wards on our cabin are set up so that he can't mortally wound me in any way. I would rather that he took it out on me tonight than to put an innocent muggle or muggle-born in danger."

Severus shook his head. She was taking on too much.

"How did he seem tonight?"

"Angry, but I couldn't tell if it was at me, at his father, or at himself."


	5. Chapter 5

She watched Ron's red hair in front of her, keeping track of him, following him. Her wand twitched in her hand. She listened to hear other aurors moving around on the floor above them. Her heartbeat raced at a million miles per hour. She tried to remain focused and alert, but the pain in her leg shot through her in bursts, blurring her thoughts and dulling her reactions. They were trapped inside the manor. Apparition wards had been set up. She was injured and normally would have been taken out of the battle at this point, but the wards left her no choice but to stay.

She and Ron entered a room to find a few aurors and death eaters throwing curses at each other. She recognized the one closest to her. He wore a mask, but she recognized his body even beneath the robes he wore. He was engaged in a duel with an auror she did not know and his back was to them. She watched as Ron in front of her raised his wand.

"Avada Kedavara."

She instintctually cast a tripping charm and Ron stumbled, narrowly missing Draco with his spell. Ron whipped around to look at her.

"Sorry, that wasn't meant for you," she lied.

An explosion ripped through the room and the wizards scattered, running for cover. She found herself in an empty hallway with the man whose life she had just saved. He had been caught by the blast and was slumped between the wall and the floor, holding his side. Blood was collecting into a puddle around him. She looked down at her leg to see it bent at an awkward angle. She heard voices of aurors from the other side of a door. They were unlocking it. How would she explain sitting in the hall with a death eater. Why hadn't she bound him or killed him by now? What could she possible say? It was then that they heard voices of death eaters coming from down the hall around the corner. There was about to be a battle here that neither one was currently in any shape to fight and there was no way out. Well, no way except for one. She grabbed the medallion around her neck reached out to the injured man. A split-second later they were on the floor of the cabin.

They stared at each other for a few seconds. This was the first time they had been in the cabin with him wearing his death eater robes or her wearing her auror uniform. It had been an unspoken rule between the two of them. She still wasn't sure why she had saved him from Ron's curse other than the fact that she found the act of cursing a wizard from behind despicable.

She pulled up his shirt and surveyed the damage. Her hands found their way through the blood to the gaping would on his chest. She concentrated her energy and there was a soft white glow. He gasped for air and she pulled away. She cast a cleaning charm to get rid of the blood. It wasn't perfect, but it would keep him together for now.

"That was incredible."

"I'm not a healer, I have basic medic training, just enough to keep everything together until you can get some real help. You have somewhere you can get healed?"

He replied with a nod.

He stood cautiously and noticed her injuries for the first time. He lifted her and placed her on the bed. He removed her pants and went to work on her injured leg. A few minutes later everything was back to normal. Both were exhausted from the magical expenditure they had put into healing as well as from the battle itself. Draco crawled onto the bed beside her and for the first time, they slept in the cabin.

They both left in the morning to seek more professional medical care. The battle, that night had changed things. As long as they had not had to face each other in a fight, they had been able to pretend that this little arrangement of theirs had nothing to do with the war, but now, it couldn't be denied any longer. A month went by with neither summoning the other. It was clear that they both needed time to think about what exactly they were risking and what exactly they had to gain.

After a month of no contact, the medallion finally burned against her skin, making her feel both sick and excited. She arrived in the cabin not ten minutes after he activated the medallion. He was already there. She started to unbutton her shirt when his hands reached out to stopped hers.

"Not yet."

He pushed something into her closed hand and she opened her fist to see what it was. It was a diamond ring, a wedding ring.

"What the fuck is this?"

"What does it look like?"

"Then I guess the better question is why."

He sat down on the bed and closed his eyes. After several minutes, he opened them and began to speak..

"You need to have a back-up plan. Our forces are gaining strength. The Order is very fragile. If the Dark Lord is victorious, I will try to claim you. But there are others more highly ranked than I who would override my claim of you if they chose."

She shuttered at the thought. She knew each of these men by name, what they had done to achieve their rank, and what they were capable of. He looked at her intensely.

"If you were my wife, none would have any right to dispute my claim. The Dark Lord gained many of his followers by appealing to traditional pureblood values. Family is primary in pureblood culture. Because of that, the marriage would have additional benefits. The first time the Dark Lord rose to power, several wives of his followers were accidentally killed in raids by his disciples. This time, there is a charm in place that while the wife of a Death Eater is wearing her wedding band, she cannot be affected by an unforgivable spell from another Death Eater. As long as you are wearing the ring, you will be safe."

She stared at him, completely speechless. Snape had told her that this man had never cared for anyone, but she could swear that he was trying to protect her. Maybe he just wanted her for his own personal sex slave after the fall of the Order, but it was still more than she had expected from him. To wear the ring would be to betray everything she was fighting for, everything she believed in, but it very well might save her life.

"I...I'm not sure...I can't...I just..."

"Meet me here tomorrow, have an answer then."

Later that night, the tediously long Order meeting finally drew to an end and members began filing out of the room. Severus quickly made his way to the front door but was intercepted by a small figure.

"Snape, I need to talk with you."

"I have business I need to take care of tonight," he said brusquely, "Come to Hogwarts tomorrow."

He put his hand on the door handle to open it but right as he was about to twist another smaller hand covered his and prevented the movement.

"It's important."

He stopped and stared at her for a few moments

"Somewhere private then."

They made their way upstairs to the library amid curious looks from the other members of the Order.

When the room had been properly warded, she held out her hand. He extended his and she let the small object drop into his palm. He brought it close to his face and examined it for a few moments, shaking his head.

"He's trying to protect you," he said with a tone of disbelief.

"I know, he told me about the charm."

Severus just kept shaking his head.

"What should I do?"

"You're asking me of all people whether or not you should get married?"

She had to admit that the situation was somewhat absurd.

"You're the only one who knows about the two of us and the only one who understands the complexity of the situation."

He just continued to shake his head in disbelief.

"There's more to this ring than just protection," he started after a few moments, "If the Dark Lord is victorious, Draco would try to claim you. But if a more highly ranked death eater were to _desire_ you, you would be theirs. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." She shuddered at the thought. As a mudblood, as Harry Potter's best friend, as the smartest witch at Hogwarts, she knew what they would do to her.

"With the ring, as his wife, you would be his. He would have first claim to you. No one could touch you."

"And if the Dark Lord falls?"

"If the Dark Lord falls, and Draco is left alive, you will have a decision to make. You can try to deny the marriage or claim he forced you to do it and let him rot in Azkaban….or you can claim that he did it to protect you, in which case you would be obligated to fight for his freedom. There are some that would take your willing act of marriage to him to be a betrayal and would believe you to be a traitor."

She nodded slowly.

"So it would be a choice between my reputation and his freedom."

"Yes. It would soften the blow of defeat… but it would make victory infinitely more complicated."

"So what should I do?"

He didn't answer her right away, but stood gazing at the ring in his hand as the firelight reflected off of its angles. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft.

"It's a war, Miss Granger, some things, some ideals, must be sacrificed in the name of survival. You should do whatever you need to in order to survive."


	6. Chapter 6

A curse flew past her head. This raid had gone terribly, terribly wrong. They had arrived at the house to search it, but it had been a trap. Twelve death eaters had been waiting there for them. She had been separated from the other aurors. She searched for a way out, but found none. Suddenly a group of five death eaters descended on her. She was good at what she did, but not good enough to take on five all by herself. They ended up with her wand.

"Avada Kedavara."

She saw the beam of green light come towards her and waited for the inevitable darkness, but it never came. The curse sort of dissipated around her.

"What the hell?" One of the men remarked and another tried again with the same results. She nervously glanced at her gloved hand, aware of what was hidden there and what it had just done for her.

"Guess we'll just have to take this little mudblood prisoner then if she refuses to die."

xxxx

She sat on the floor of the cold manor with a few other prisoners. The Dark Lord sat on his throne in the room filled with his followers. There were several men around her arguing about who would get her and what they would do to her. She was on her knees, her hands bound in front of her. She stared downwards at the cold stone floor while these men argued around her, occasionally touching her or cursing her. Finally there was a voice from across the room.

"She's mine."

She looked up as the crowd parted to reveal Draco Malfoy walking towards her. One of the men laughed.

"Draco, I know she's a pretty little mudblood, but all five of us outrank you. Sorry, but you're going to have to find another mudblood to be your slave."

Draco moved closer to her and grabbed her arm, lifting it up and ripped the glove off her hand to reveal the ring he had given her. There were a couple shocked gasps from around the room.

"She's mine."

The Dark Lord spoke for the first time.

"Very well, Draco, send her home. But you are to stay here."

Draco paled, but created a portkey and an instant later she was in the Malfoy Manor, alone.

xxxxxxxx

She waited and waited. There were strong wards keeping her in the deserted manor. She had expected him to appear in a matter of hours, but by her count, five days had gone by and he had still not shown up. She spent her time scrounging what little food she could from the empty pantry and trying to find a way out. She was unsuccessful.

Her body was still wracked with spasms from the Cruciatus curse and without proper nutrition and care, she was getting weaker by the day. The thought crossed her mind that he could be dead and she was stuck here to starve to death. That scenario was only slightly less terrifying than the band of Death Eaters she was expecting to show up at any moment to torture her.

She was contemplating these options when all of a sudden there was a sound downstairs. She froze. Someone was here and she had no wand, no way of defending herself. In her weakened state her wandless magic was practically nonexistent. She was in the library sitting on the floor. The door to the dark room was suddenly flung open, spilling light onto the dusty floorboards. She flattened herself against the wall, trying to conceal herself in the shadows. The light from the hallway framed the silhouettes of two men in the doorway, one supporting the other. She held her breath. The taller man swept his arm across the desk, clearing it by knocking everything off of it onto the floor and lowered the other man who was obviously unconscious onto it. He cast a spell, sending a fire roaring into the fireplace and lighting the room. His back was turned to her, but even in the low light she could make out his figure. It was a figure she could recognize anywhere and a figure she had never been happier to see. She stepped out of the shadows.

"Severus."

He turned to look at her, but there was worry in his eyes. She moved closer to the desk and saw the reason. Draco lay limp, broken, and beaten.

"Is he.."

"No. He's not dead."

That was all he could say, all he could say for certain. He had never seen anyone go through what this man had and live, but the fact remained that his heart was still beating. It was beating weakly and erratically, but it was still beating. He pulled out a pouch from his cloak and emptied the vials it contained out onto the desk. She assisted him for the next several hours as he attended to his godson.

Finally, when he had done all he could, he levitated the young man down the hall into his bedroom. Severus returned to the library where Hermione was waiting for him. He cleaned up the vials as she sat by the fire. When he was done, he went to sit next to her. He took her thin arm in his hands and tenderly began to heal the wounds left from her capture. As he healed her, she spoke.

"They did this to him…because of me."

The man nodded.

"He knew the risk. He knew the risk he was taking when he offered you that ring. He knew what could happen."

Finishing healing her, he let go of her arm and drew his hands to his head, rubbing his temples.

"I think I may have given up on him too soon. He was my godson and I failed him. His recent actions, what he went through for you…it's as if I never knew him. I could always tell that whenever I looked at Harry Potter, I saw James. But I think that every time I looked at Draco, I saw Lucius."

She took his hand in hers and he raised his face to look at her.

"Maybe Draco was never like his father. Maybe he was always more like you."

The clock chimed, breaking the moment. He glanced at it and quickly stood up.

"I have to get going before I'm missed. I'll send over a house elf with some food for you. You'll need to heal Draco more once he wakes up. I left some potions beside his bed."

He reached into his robes and pulled out her wand. She felt a flicker of hope the moment she saw it. Her wand, her way out of here. Handing it to her, he said,

"If you escape, they will kill him."

Her heart sunk.

"But if he doesn't even know…"

"They will kill him anyways."

He was a death eater, she shouldn't care what would happen to him after she escaped. But she did. He had saved her life, after all, and more than once. And then there was Severus. She couldn't do that to him. He was trusting her and she couldn't betray that trust. She looked up, but he was across the room, staring into the fire instead of looking at her.

"It's getting worse out there," he sighed, "As sad as it is, this may actually be the safest place for you right now."

And then Severus was gone and she was left in the big, cold, empty manor. She carefully tiptoed down the hall and peeked through the slightly open door to where the only other living occupant of the house slept. For all the time she had spent on a bed with this man, she had rarely seen him sleep. She watched him through the half-open door, illuminated by candlelight as he slept almost motionlessly. Finally, she gathered enough nerve to push the door open and entered the room. She spent the rest of the night in a chair next to the bed, casting diagnostic charms and doing what she could to help heal him.

xxxx

It was the next afternoon that his eyes suddenly shot wide open and he looked around frantically in panic and confusion.

"Snape brought you back," she said slowly, stepping out of the shadows, "and healed you."

This was enough for him. He closed his eyes for a few minutes and then started to try to stand. She was there to catch him when his body crumbled and he fell. It took a week for him to recover. During that time, they barely spoke. She slept on the couch in the library and only entered his room a few times each day to heal him and bring him food. They had been violent enemies, they had been passionate lovers, yet neither type of interaction seemed appropriate now. He was her master, it was her bond to him that had kept her alive, yet she was the one taking care of him now, the one keeping him alive. Days would pass with only a few words spoken between the two of them. Eventually he healed and she stopped coming to his room at all, spending all her time in the library instead.

xxx

It was dusk. She sat in the windowseat of the library, staring out the window, lost in her thoughts. She didn't even hear him enter, didn't notice his presence until she felt a soft hand on her shoulder. She stood suddenly, surprised, and turned to face him. It was the first time they had touched since he had been healed. He was wearing his Death Eater robes, mask in hand.

"I've been summoned," he told her in a low voice. He was clearly not thrilled at this development. "I just…I just thought you should know."

He turned to leave but was stopped as he felt her grab his arm.

"Draco, be careful," she whispered, not believing that she was actually saying the words. They leaned closer to each other, as if to kiss, when her eye caught the mask in his hand and she sharply pulled away. How could she be wishing for his safety? She should want him dead. She let go of his arm and he strode out of the room. She listened to his footsteps fade down the stairs followed by a pop.

It grew dark as she waited for him to return. She tried to sleep, but found that she couldn't. In the early hours of the morning, she heard the pop of apparition from downstairs. She felt relieved that he had come back, that he was still alive, and then guilt for her relief. She remembered the last time he had returned and winced, he had been barely alive, who knew what shape he was in this time.

She heard the water running in the bathroom and tiptoed down the hall. The bathroom door was open and the light was on, spilling out into the dark hallway. She was relieved to see him standing. Draco stood at the sink, washing his hands. There was red blood smeared all over the white tile, her heart skipped a beat. He was hurt. At that moment, he noticed her in the dark hallway. He froze, but the water continued to run, splashing over the tile and washing the blood down the sink. She took a step towards him, reaching out for him, an offer to heal him.

"I can…." She started, but he merely shook his head.

"It's not mine," he said coldly and pushed past her, leaving the bathroom. She was left alone in the cold white room, the white of the tiles gleaming, some still smeared with blood. Of course, of course it hadn't been his. He hadn't been punished for failing, it hadn't been an injury from a botched job, it had been the residue of success. She stared at the blood, transfixed. Whose was it? A fellow auror's? A friend's? This is what being on opposite sides of the war meant. She had been hoping all night that he would return safely, but his returning safely meant that someone on her side had not.


	7. Chapter 7

Things continued as they had before. They shared the large house without every really seeing each other. She became intimately aware of the noises of the old manor. She could trace Draco's movements and activities through every little sound. She always waited for the creak of the kitchen door, and footsteps on the stairs, and the slamming of his bedroom door before she would dare to venture out to get herself something to eat. She suspected that he was doing the same.

She tried to talk herself into wishing he would die one night, into even killing him herself, but she couldn't. And those nights when she heard the swish of his heavier Death Eater robes out in the corridor followed by the crack of apparition from downstairs, she still couldn't sleep until she heard footsteps in the hallway once more followed by running water. Whenever she heard the water, she would let out a breath she always found herself holding despite her best efforts not to. This breath was followed by a sick feeling in her stomach. He was alive…but who was not?

It was one of these nights, one of the nights that he had been called that she lay awake on the library couch staring at the ceiling and trying to talk herself into sleeping. She heard his footsteps downstairs and was expecting to hear the running water any second, but instead there was the shattering of glass followed by another thud and then another. She sat up suddenly. These were new sounds, ones she had never heard him make. She crept downstairs.

There was more shattering of glass and she cracked the door to peek inside. Broken dishes and pieces of furniture lay strewn across the kitchen as he continued to smash stuff in a rage. She let the door slip open further than she had intended and he noticed her standing there in the open doorway staring at him. His eyes burned with what she could best describe as pain, but he did not appear to be injured besides the cuts on his hands. In contrast to his normal put-together look, he was disheveled, blond hair strewn across his eyes. He stared at her for a few minutes, tea cup in his hand, before he spoke.

"They killed him, they fucking killed him!" He threw the tea cup violently and she flinched as it smashed against the wall beside her.

"who?" she whispered.

He opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of firewhisky. Opening it, he sunk down to the floor, letting his back slide against the side of the counter. He looked…defeated. He opened the bottle and took a few swigs.

"He killed Severus," he whispered, staring at the bottle.

She sunk down on the floor opposite him. Severus was dead. The one man who knew her secrets, the man who had helped her, had given up so much for everyone. A single tear traced its way down her cheek, but Draco was too enveloped in his own grief to notice. He was took another swig and started mumbling to himself, as if trying to get it all to make sense.

"There was a battle and Aunt Bella captured Potter. The Dark Lord wanted to finish Potter himself, but Bella was too injured to transport Potter herself, so she sent for Severus. Severus was supposed to transport Potter to the Dark Lord's manor where he would be killed, but he stopped at his home first and Potter got away. The Dark Lord killed him for his failure. He was so precise, so careful, and Potter got away. How could he? How could he let that happen?"

His demeanor changed suddenly from sorrowful grief to outright rage. He stood up suddenly and threw another teacup at the wall. As it shattered, he started yelling.

"It's such a waste, such a fucking waste. He was so smart and so powerful and he was fucking killed because of a mistake."

"It wasn't a mistake," she whispered.

"What?" He looked down at her as if noticing her presence in the room for the first time, his head quirked at the presence of the tear on her cheek, not understanding why Severus' death would bother her.

"It wasn't a mistake." She repeated, louder this time, standing up. She found herself face-to-face with him.

He stared at her with a look of incredulity on his face.

"He was loyal to the Order of the Phoenix," she stated firmly.

"He wasn't."

"He was."

He sat for a moment, digesting the information, adjusting to the way his world had suddenly been turned upside down.

"Why?"

"He was in love with Lily Potter, he turned against Voldemort to avenge her death."

Draco closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands.

"He gave his life to save Harry's." She continued, "He believed in the prophecy. He didn't die because of a mistake, he died a hero. He died for what he believed in."

He wanted to yell at her, wanted her to tell her it wasn't true, that she was the one who had been fooled, not him, but he couldn't. He couldn't do it because it made sense. He could have seen it if he had wanted to, all the hints Severus had dropped, all the veiled offers of help, but he hadn't wanted to see it. He hadn't wanted to believe that the man he respected would betray everything he fought for.

His head was still buried in his hands, so he didn't see her leave the room. He took another drink from the bottle and contemplated the vastly different place the world had become for him in the past few hours.

In the end, it would be the man who had killed his father against the man who had killed his godfather. The only question was what side would he be on? What it all came down to was what kind of man did he want to be? His father or his godfather? A man who obeyed a cruel master for his own wealth and power, or a man who would give his own life out of loyalty to a woman? Both paths had led to death. Which one would he take?

He lay down on the kitchen floor, head against the hard tile. He was drunk, there was no doubt about that fact. He wasn't sure how long he lay there before he felt a pair of small hands lifting his face from the cold tile. She had come back. She lay his head in her lap and covered his body with a blanket she had brought down for him. He was vaguely aware of her actions. In her position seated on the kitchen floor, she leaned back against the cabinets. As he slept with his head in her lap, she gently stroked his hair.

He woke up the following morning still on the kitchen floor, covered in one blanket with another neatly tucked under his head. The kitchen had been repaired and cleaned. On the counter sat a vial of hangover potion. He walked upstairs and entered the library for the first time in months. She sat in the window seat. It was obvious that she had been crying.

"Thank you," he murmured from across the room. She looked up at him and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"I didn't know….I didn't know you cared for him," he moved closer to her, taking a seat on the couch.

"I didn't know him as much more than an unfair potions teacher and an enigmatic spy until this year…until you."

"He found out about our arrangement," he nodded.

"Yes. And tried to get me to stop."

"I'm sure that was a pleasant conversation."

She laughed and when her laugh died away they remained in a contemplative silence.

"He was an incredible man," she said, breaking it.

"He was," he agreed.

His expression grew pained and he shook his head.

"What he must have thought of me…"

"He didn't want this for you, but he couldn't compromise his position as a spy."

"I know. There were hints, I just didn't want to hear them. He did all he could without exposing himself."

"The night…the night he brought you back here injured, he told me that he thought he had given up on you too soon, that maybe he had never known you at all."

Had Severus indeed been wrong about him? Had he been wrong about himself? When he had taken the mark, he had believed that joining the fight of his father and his father before him was who he was, was who he had been destined to be. Had he been wrong?


	8. Chapter 8

Weeks passed. While their previous relationship had been based only on touch, their new relationship excluded it entirely. The cabin had always put things on an even playing field, but she was his prisoner in a way now and that changed everything. He just couldn't bring himself to touch her. So instead they talked. They avoided the subject of the war mostly or only talked about it in very abstract terms. To say they were friends would have been too much. To say they coexisted would be more accurate.

xxxxx

He arrived home suddenly and threw back the kitchen door suddenly, causing her to jump up from the seat in which she sat. She could see the panic in his eyes.

"Potter has broken the wards of the Dark Lord's estate."

She froze. She should have been happy to hear this, but the panic in Draco's eyes was disquieting. What did he expect her to do?

"Get your robes and wand. You need to get out of here."

She didn't move.

"But…but they'll kill you."

"You don't understand, do you? They're desperate. They'll be here any minute for you, to use you as leverage against Potter. You need to get out of here."

She ran upstairs and grabbed her wand and a dark robe to go over her clothing.

He was waiting for her as she came back down the stairs.

"Where will you go?"

"Order Headquarters. I'll find out the plan from there and then go join Harry. He needs me by his side for this."

Draco only nodded as she walked into the apparition room.

"I'll see you there," he said, with a sad smile.

She reached out and ran caressed his cheek. Then suddenly dropping her hand, she was gone with a crack.

She arrived at Grimmauld Place into the middle of a hurried frenzy. Witches and Wizards she barely recognized bustled by her with a nervous hum in the air. She started to make her way towards the kitchen when a strong hand grabbed her shoulder.

"Hermione?"

It was Charlie Weasely.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were being held prisoner by the death eaters."

"I escaped. What's going on here?"

"Harry breached the wards on the Dark Lord's manor. We're sending in aurors and Order members to back him up."

"Good," she said, pulling out her wand, "give me the apparition coordinates."

Charlie eyes her warily.

"Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, you were held prisoner. Surely you need some time to recover, you can't be ready to head straight into the middle of a battle."

She took another step towards him.

"Give me the coordinates."

He handed her a piece of parchment with numbers hastily scrawled on it. She committed them to memory and handed him back the parchment.

"I still don't think this is a good idea."

"Charlie, we've been preparing for this day for years. How could I not be by Harry's side when it happens?"

As soon as she apparated, she knew she should have listened to Charlie. She was out of practice, out of shape. Her reaction time had slowed and he muscles had weakened. Even though she had been in posession of her wand, she had barely used it over the past several months.

A curse hit her from behind, a curse she would have been able to dodge had she been in shape. It took her a few minutes to get a sense of the battle being waged. They were inside a large room, possibly a ballroom in the Dark Lord's manor. Aurors and Order members were apparating to right outside the room and then entering through the open doors to face a wall of death eaters. There were so many. Then she heard a scream, a scream she recognized...Harry's scream. It was coming from behind the death eaters. He had obviously been separated from the rest. She fought furiously until she reached him. She could finally see him as she dashed through the throngs of approaching death eaters. She called out to him and lunged towards him, but then realized that her wand was no longer in her hand.

She spun around to see Bellatrix Lestrange holding both her wand and Harry's in one hand while the other pointed Bella's own wand at them menacingly. Voldemort stood behind her looking at her approvingly. Hermione glanced around for help but saw that she was the only one who had made it through the mass of death eaters. The two of them were separated from the rest of the Order and Auror members. If backup was coming, it would not reach them in time.

"What do you want me to do now, My Lord?"

"Kill the Mudblood. I want Potter's memory of watching her die be the last thing he sees before I kill him."

Bellatrix raised her wand and Hermione closed her eyes, helplessly waiting for the inevitable. She heard a scream and momentarily wondered if it was her own. She slowly opened her eyes and saw that it was her attacker who had been the one to scream. Bella lay motionless on the floor. A masked death eater stood behind her, wand still trained on her lifeless body.

"Traitor," the Dark Lord hissed.

The death eater took of his mask and let it clatter to the floor.

"I'm not the first to carry that title with pride." He bent down on one knee and took the two wands out of Bella's lifeless hand.

Voldemort, Harry, and Hermione all stared at the wands in this man's hand, transfixed. In that moment, he held the outcome of this war in his hand. He tossed the wands to Harry and Hermione, looking at the Dark Lord defiantly. Harry's jaw was still open wide in shock. He had never expected something like this from Draco Malfoy.

"This might take a little while," Harry whispered to Hermione. She nodded and turned to hold off the oncoming Death Eaters who were now trying to join the battle between the Dark Lord and Harry Potter. Draco stood at her side, backs to Harry as they kept the Death Eaters at bay and bought him the time to do what he had been training to do since he was eleven years old.

When at last Harry Potter stepped over the lifeless body of the man who was once Tom Riddle, the battle ended and the round-up began. Death Eaters were all arrested and sent to Azkaban pending trial. As Hermione embraced Harry, she looked over his shoulder to see a blond death eater being led away.

"Stop," she ran over, "He was helping us. He was fighting with us."

"It's not my job," the auror told her. "I'm under orders to arrest all wizards bearing the mark. Sort it out later."

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A/N: Sorry this took me so long. I have more written after this chapter, but I needed this one to bridge the gap between them. I hate writing action scenes, so this one was holding me back. It was a Point A to Point B sort of chapter. I know it's not good, but at least it's done now, so I can keep going with the rest of the story.


	9. Chapter 9

He sat in the corner watching drops of water slowly fall through a crack in the ceiling and fall to become one with the small puddle on the floor. He found it comforting, the way the drops fell in a steady rhythm, the ripples they made on the surface of the puddle. So this was Azkaban. He had heard so much about it from his father, from his aunt. He had never expected to end up here, but he supposed it was something of a family tradition. He was being held in an isolated cell away from the other prisoners. He wasn't even sure how much time had gone by. Very little light reached his cell and he had trouble discerning night from day. He concentrated on the drops rippling the surface of the puddle and tried not to let his mind wander to the probability that he would spend the rest of his life in this place.

He had heard one of the guards mention something to another one about a trial. Well, at least he was going to have a trial. His only problem was that he was guilty. He was very guilty. He had taken the mark willingly, supported the evil tyrant. He had killed. He had betrayed this master, betrayed his whole system of beliefs, but he doubted that would be enough. He couldn't help but wonder if Severus would be in here with him if the man was still alive. And if Severus was alive and not in Azkaban, would even he defend his godson?

The small door slammed open and a tall, brusque guard stepped into the room , scattering the small puddle with his boot. Draco saw the light from the guard's wand come straight toward him. His last thought was that it looked like a stunning spell. The next thing he knew, he was taking a large gasp of breath and his eyes flew open, taking in a large, bright room full of people. His chest tightened as he panicked. He had spent the few months alone in a dark room. To now be in a well-lit room surrounded by people was too much for him. All eyes were on him. As the room came into focus, he saw faces that he recognized. It seemed as though the whole Order had come to the ministry for the trials. But he didn't see _her_. He wasn't sure if he wanted to.

He was vaguely aware of a ministry official behind him reading a list of his crimes. He didn't listen. He already knew all his sins, he didn't need to hear them from the lips of another. It seemed the drill was for the crimes to be read and then the public would be given a chance to object to any of the charges. If all the defendant had was their own word, they would be found guilty and sentenced immediately. If someone had some evidence of testimony to give in their favor, a trial date would be set.

As the man finished reading the charges, a dense silence filled the room. The silence condemned him. It was the silence of all the people he had tormented in school, the silence of all the people his father had tried to manipulate, the silence of all the people he had faced from the other side of the wand. He deserved this silence. And then suddenly it was broken by a voice.

"I will defend him."

There was not a face in the room that did not have surprise written all over it, including the one that had spoken. She seemed as surprised as anyone by the words she had just said. He saw her for the first time, sitting there with all the eyes now on her. Harry Potter sat next to her.

The ministry official spoke again.

"Why do you defend this man?"

"I am his wife," she said, standing up and pulling off her glove to reveal a silver wedding ring that shone brightly under and harsh lights of the ministry. There was a few gasps of surprise before the entire room broke into chaos.

"Traitor."

"Death Eater whore."

"Why isn't someone arresting her?"

"She should be the one in azkaban."

He looked around at the wizards hurling these insults at her and realized that they were the ones she named as friends, the ones she had fought so hard to protect. She had sacrificed her perfect reputation, her status as a war hero to try to save him. It seemed like that would not be enough. Instead of it saving him, it seemed to condemn her along with him. But he had a trial now, a chance. It was a very faint chance, but still it existed.

"Trial is set for Thursday," the ministry official called out before stunning him again. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was a mass of brown curls pushing through the crowd trailed by a head of dark hair.

xxxxxx

She apparated before Harry could reach her. He tried several different apparition locations before he finally arrived at the correct one and saw her in the distance. As he approached, he found her standing and staring at the heap of charred lumber that had once been her apartment building. Apparently in all the commotion, no one had thought to inform her that the Death Eaters had destroyed her building in their attempt to find her. She couldn't move, she couldn't tear her eyes off the wreckage of what had once been everything she owned. He approached quietly and stood beside her for a while, letting her take it all in.

"No one told me," she finally whispered."

"I'm sorry. In everything that happened, I forgot that you didn't know."

She said nothing. 'Everything that happened', what an understatement.

"You can come stay with me at Grimmauld Place."

She shook her head, eyes still trained on the charred wreckage.

"Everyone there thinks I'm a traitor."

"Then they can leave if they have a problem with you being there."

She looked up to see the quiet resolve in Harry's eyes and collapsed into his arms, allowing him to apparate her to his house.

Harry thought back to that night at Spinner's End. He was still shuttering from the effects of the Cruciatus curse. Snape was frantic, gathering potions and various objects from around the house. Snape was supposed to deliver him to Voldemort, that was all he knew. Finally Snape thrust a bag in his hands.

"Take this to the Order."

"Where are you going?"

"I have to go back to him."

"No."

"As long as I return, they may kill me for allowing your escape, but there will still remain in their minds some possibility that it was an accident, some possibility that I was loyal. If I don't return, they will know I was disloyal and will take a second look at everything I've ever done for them. I've sabotaged them in ways they still have yet to find out. I can't risk that."

Snape was going to his death. He knew it and Harry knew it. Snape grabbed a handful of floo powder, but instead of throwing it in the fireplace, turned back around to face Harry.

"Promise me. Promise me one thing. After this is all over, you might find out some things about Hermione. Promise me you will stand by her, no matter what. She will need someone. Give me your word."

"Yes. I swear."

And with a short nod, Snape turned and was gone into the fire. Looking back on it now, Harry was sure this is what Snape had been referring to, what he had sworn to stand by her through. Snape had known. Harry would keep his word to Snape, but he would do it his way.

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Harry sat at his desk, staring at the piles of paper that he just didn't have the energy or desire to deal with right now. The door opened slightly and his friend timidly slid into the room.

"What are you doing here?" He asked her.

She had been suspended from the Aurors since the scandal broke.

"Draco's trial is tomorrow," she said softly, sitting down in the chair facing his desk.

He said nothing.

"Your word, your testimony could make the difference between him being locked away in Azkaban for the rest of his life or being set free."

He still said nothing.

"He protected me, Harry, he saved my life. I know you've never gotten along with him, but you saw what he did at the end. You saw which side he chose. You would not have been able to kill Voldemort without his help and you know it."

"Hermione, he was a death eater."

"Harry, after everything Snape had done to you, after the way he had treated you, if he was still alive, I have no doubt you would be at his trial to testify he saved your life. Why is this so hard for you to understand?"

"Ok, Ok, I'll think about it," he promised her. This had the desired effect and she left his office, left him to think. He had a plan. He couldn't just help set Malfoy free, not knowing the whole truth, not knowing if he was putting his best friend in even more danger by following her wishes. But he couldn't do this alone, he needed an accomplice. He needed someone more interested in security at all costs than in following the rules. He walked down the hallway and knocked on the door to the office of his fellow auror, Allister Moody.

xxxx

Draco sat in the dark in his tiny dank cell. At least tomorrow the suspense would end and he would know if he had any hope of ever leaving this place. He heard the creak of his cell door opening and suddenly he was grabbed roughly and forced into the hallway. He was forced down narrow hallway after narrow hallway until they arrived in a tiny room far below the ministry. He was shoved down into a chair and magically bound to it. Finally a light came on, revealing the faces of Harry Potter and Allister Moody seated across the table from him. Moody placed a small vial containing a clear substance on the table in front of Draco.

"Drink it."

"This is illegal. I know the law and veritaserum interrogations are illegal."

Harry slowly leaned forward across the table and calmly pointed his wand at Draco's face.

"You've known me for over ten years. When in those ten years have I even shown any hesitation to break the rules when they did not suit my purposes?"

Draco saw the gleam of anger in the eyes of the man seated across from him, but made no motion towards the vial.

"This is your only hope, Malfoy, your only hope of getting me to testify for you tomorrow."

Draco picked up the vial and drank its contents. Both aurors waited a few moments before they begun. Moody, being an experienced veritaserum interrogator, began the questioning as Harry leaned against the wall in the back on the room, watching from the shadows.

"What is your name?"

"Draco Malfoy"

"What is your age?"

"Twenty-two."

"What is your profession?"

"Currently, prisoner. Formerly, death eater."

"In your dealings with Hermione Granger, did she ever say or do anything that compromised the security and secrecy of the Order of the Phoenix or of the Aurors in any way?"

"No. We didn't exactly do much talking."

Harry lunged at the man, but Moody caught him.

"Hermione would never!" Harry yelled, and tried to fight Moody's grip on him.

"You can't give me something to make it impossible for me to lie and then attack me for telling the truth."

"He's right." Moody told Harry, giving him a harsh look. Harry returned to leaning against the back wall and Moody continued the interrogation, focusing on questions about whether or not Hermione had betrayed the Order in any way and if Draco had let anything slip about the activities of Voldemort's forces that Hermione had failed to report. He found nothing. The old auror stood and motioned to Harry to follow him out into the dim hallway. Once out there, they spoke in low voices.

"I'm satisfied. Hermione didn't betray the Order. I'm going to go finish up some work upstairs. You can ask him whatever you want, just put him back in his cell when you're done."

Harry nodded and went back in the small interrogation room and sat down at the table.

"How did this start…between you and her?"

"By accident, actually. I ran into her in a bar when she was drunk and it turned physical before she realized who I was. After that, I needed more, I had to see her again. Apparently she felt the same way."

"Why did you give her that ring?"

"Wedding rings of death eaters have a charm to protect the wearer from stray spells from other death eaters. I wanted to protect her."

Harry looked at him curiously.

"Are you in love with her?"

The answer came immediately, without any hesitation.

"Yes."

Both men looked completely and utterly shocked. Harry was speechless, but Draco started sputtering, trying to fight the potion pumping through his veins.

"What I meant to say was…yes. Ugh, what I am trying to say is….yes. That's not…arg…what I am trying to tell you is that….yes, I do... completely."

He gave up and put his face in his hands to avoid Harry's stare of incredulity.

"You need to tell her."

"No."

"You need to."

"You don't understand, do you? You, her, Gryffindors, you do things because they are the right thing to do. For me, for Snape, for Slytherins, it's always personal. Always."

Harry remained silent. He could not deny this statement. Since Snape's death, he had found out about the relationship between the man and his mother, the real reason Snape had turned on the Dark Lord. It had not been for any sort of higher ideology, it had been for personal revenge.

"She's not doing this for any personal reasons. She doesn't care about me. She's saving me because I saved her. That makes it the right thing to do in her eyes. A Griffindor standing up for you means nothing except you fit in to some larger picture of their morality. A Slytherin standing up for you actually means something."

A few silent moments stretched out and the two men stared at each other, lost deep in thought.

"I killed your father."

"I know."

"He deserved to die."

"He did." It was the truth. Draco had known it for a long time, but it was still painful to have to admit it out loud.

Both men stared at each other for a long time.

"I will testify for you tomorrow on one condition."

Draco looked at him, both relieved and apprehensive.

"You have to tell her."

"No."

"You have to tell her you love her."

xxxxxx

a/n: Ok, so up until this chapter, I've told the story from the viewpoint of Hermione and Snape. I've kept Draco purposely a little vague so that you don't really know his motives because Hermione doesn't. At this point in the story, I'm shifting the viewpoint to Draco and Harry.


	10. Chapter 10

All eyes were on her and she burned under their intense stare. The room was packed as she slowly told her story. This was not something she had wanted to talk about, not in front of so many people, both friends and strangers, she wasn't sure which was worse. But he had saved her life, so she would save his. That was just the way things worked.

She told them of how he had married her to protect her from other death eaters, how he had kept her safe after she was captured, even putting his own life on the line for hers. She told them of how he had let her go before anyone could come use her against Harry, and then she told them of what he had done at the final battle, how he had turned against Voldemort, killing his aunt and helping her hold off the death eaters while Harry finished off the Dark Lord. It was a long story, but although she started it in a shaky voice, the more she talked, the move she convinced even herself that this man should not be in Azkaban. By the time her story ended, her voice had returned to its strong, confident self.

As she finished her story, the ministry questioner stood.

"One cannot help but wonder, Miss Granger, about the accuracy of your testimony. I have to admit it seems unlikely. Has he paid you to lie for him? Has he tricked you into loving him? Are you only insinuating that he helped defeat Voldemort so that you look less like a traitor for marrying him?"

"No!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Granger, but.."

"Mrs. Malfoy," she interrupted. This trial had been over before it had even began. They had decided that he was guilty and nothing she could say could change their minds.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Malfoy, but your testimony alone cannot be counted as a credible account of events. If there is no one else that will..."

"I will," a voice came from the back of the room. Everyone looked up as Harry Potter confidently strode to the front of the room. "I will back up her testimony."

And there it was. No one could accuse Harry Potter of being a traitor. No one could doubt his testimony, no one could go against his word. To do so would be heresy. He was, after all, a hero. _The_ hero. And although people might wonder in their own minds if he was just defending this man in order to save his best friend from prosecution as a traitor, they would never voice these thoughts.

He could vouch for no part of her story but the last part. However, it was the last part that mattered the most. It was in the last part that showed how Draco had decided the outcome of the final battle, how perhaps even more than Harry, he had been crucial in bringing down the Dark Lord. Harry told them that this one act of defiance meant more than years of loyalty. He wasn't sure that he believed it himself, but if he said it out loud, then everyone else would believe it without question. His power made him sick, but he exploited it anyway.

The jury conferred for only moments before the decision was read.

"You're free to go, Mr. Malfoy. Your properties and funds will be released from Ministry control within the next few days."

He walked out of the courtroom, half expecting someone to stop him, tell him it was all a mistake, and bring him back to Azkaban. Once he reached the hallway, he stood there, not knowing which way to go. Which way could he go? He had no money or property at the moment. He had betrayed his friends and allies. Where could he go until he could access his money?

"You can stay with me for a few days," a quiet female voice said behind him.

He shook his head and didn't even turn around. "You're already done too much for me."

"Then do this favor for _me_."

What choice did he have?

"Fine," he conceded and let her apparate them both away, both to Grimmauld Place.

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Harry had given him a room to stay in until his accounts were cleared and properties were returned. He had spent most of his day avoiding the two other occupants of the house. He sat by the fire, sipping his firewhisky and trying not to think of the woman in the room next to his.

There was a tapping at the window and he opened it to let the owl in. The owl dropped a letter in his hand which he opened and read. It was from the ministry, his assets had been cleared faster than expected. It was too late to do anything about it tonight. He would stay the night and leave in the morning. His thoughts once again drifted to the woman next door. This might be the last time he ever saw her. It was late, but he could hear her moving around in the next room. He wanted to taste her, to touch her one last time.

He crept into the hallway and softly knocked on her door. The surprised look on her face when she answered told him that he was obviously not who she expected to see. She took a step back and he followed her into her room, shutting the door behind him. He pushed her against the wall and lowered his lips to hers, kissing her desperately, letting her feel what he felt for her, what he could never say to her. He picked her up and carried her to the bed, setting her down on it and slowly stripping away her nightclothes. As he ran his hands over her breasts, he tried to memorize every touch, every sound she made so that he could replay them in his memory after he was gone.

When they were done, she reached for him, to hold him, but he pushed her arm away. He couldn't spend the night in her bed and then leave in the morning. If would be easier this way. He pushed the door open and returned to his room as she lay awake on her bed and scolded herself for ever thinking that there could be more between them than sex. She had thought maybe, after all he had done for her, that maybe he could love her, that maybe he had done it all out of love. This didn't seem to be the case. How could she really think that he had changed that much?

But there was something, something in the way he looked at her that night, something in the way that he had made love to her that had made her think it was a possibility, but just when she allowed herself that tiny bit of hope, he had pushed her away and gone back to his own room. She was a fool for thinking it could ever be anything more with him. It was just sex, it always had been.

xxxxxxxxx

When he walked into the kitchen the next morning, Harry was sitting at the table drinking coffee and reading the paper while Hermione stood at the counter absent-mindedly playing with her tea bag. He walked over to her and spoke quietly.

"I just wanted to let you know that the ministry has released my Gringotts accounts. I'll get out of your way now, let you get back to your life. If you want, you can ask the Ministry for a divorce. I won't stop you."

She nodded, but continued playing with her tea bag instead of looking at him.

"Do you want some breakfast before you leave?" She asked softly.

"No. I really need to get going."

She nodded again, still not looking at him and he turned to leave, but found that Harry had gotten up from the table and was blocking the doorway.

"So you're going to leave without telling her?" Harry hissed at him.

"Get out of my way, Potter."

"We had a deal."

"And I'm breaking it. Get out of my way."

"Not until you tell her. She deserves to know," Harry said, standing his ground.

"Tell me what?" She asked with a hint of trepidation, looking up from her tea bag to the conflict at the doorway.

Harry said nothing but continued to stare intensely at Draco.

"Tell me what?" She repeated louder this time, bordering on anger.

"Tell me what, Draco?"

"That I love you," he said angrily, still facing Harry, still with his back turned to her.

He heard a snort of laughter from behind him.

"Yeah, good one."

Wasn't this what he had expected?

"It's true, He confessed under veritaserum."

She advanced past Draco to face Harry.

"You did _what_?" Her voice was low and deadly.

"I had to know, Hermione. I had to know what I was letting you do."

Draco took this moment of distraction to slip past Harry and through the door. He could hear her footsteps behind him, he could hear her voice calling his name, but all he wanted to do was get out of there. He had said it and she had laughed at him. Wasn't that exactly what he had expected? Wasn't that exactly why he hadn't told her?

When Hermione didn't come back inside the house, Harry opened the front door. He found her sitting on the front steps, her head buried in her hands. He sat down next to her.

"He apparated. I don't know where he went."

"You love him too, don't you?"

She closed her eyes.

"He told me he loved me and I laughed at him. I just didn't think….I didn't think it was possible."


	11. Chapter 11

Hermione spent the following weeks that passed mostly curled up on the couch of the library, staring into the fire. She had been allowed conditional re-admittance into the aurors at the request of Harry and Moody, but had declined the offer. Now that Voldemort was dead, she wanted to focus on someone less practical and more interesting. Probably some sort of research, maybe either spell or potion development. It was hard to choose a path when all her thoughts ended up turning back to her former lover. He had loved her, of course. She should have seen that. Why else had he protected her, set her free, turned against the Dark Lord? Had she been the only reason he had turned against them? There were bands of renegade Death Eaters gathering across the country. Would he go back to his old ways now? Would he join them since she had rejected him? She stared into the fire and contemplated the possibilities.

This was how Harry found her when he returned from work. He sat down on the couch next to her and placed a small piece of parchment in her hand. The parchment contained a set of apparition coordinates. She looked at him inquisitively.

"All former Death Eaters are being required to register their location with the Ministry."

She didn't have to ask which former Death Eater was located at these coordinates.

"It's not the Malfoy Manor," she mused, staring at the coordinates.

"No. It's not."

"Do you know where they lead?"

"By the prefix…maybe somewhere in Spain. That's all I know."

She was encouraged by the fact that it was not the Malfoy Manor, that he had not gone seamlessly to fit back into his old life.

"Are you going to go?"

"I don't know. I don't know if I can" She handed the parchment back to him and went up to her room to go to bed.

She arrived downstairs in the kitchen the next morning. The piece of parchment was sitting on the kitchen table. She stared at the door, the door that he had walked through and left her life forever. She picked up the parchment and apparated.

The apparition point was at the edge of the property, but it afforded a clear view of the distant house. The house was nothing like she expected. As she neared it, she got a good view of the modernist home of glass and steel perched on the edge of the cliff. The house told her everything that Draco could not. It was as different from the heavy stone of Malfoy manor as anything could be. The house seemed light, barely tethered to the ground, built of steel and glass and little else.

This house told her that he was leaving the past behind. History and tradition had been sacrificed for light and air. Malfoy manor had secret rooms and passageways hidden beneath the stones, this house had only glass; there was no place for secrets to hide. The house had few interior walls, simply letting the space of one room slip into the next. Only a man who had spent time in Azkaban could want this much freedom.

She walked towards it, ,up the hill on the narrow path overgrown with wild grasses and flowers. All was silent except for the occasional ruffling of wind through the grasses.

When she reached the house, she found the front door unlocked. She slipped in silently, finding the house as light and airy on the inside as it appeared from the outside. It was clean and bare. She walked through the kitchen, dragging her hand lightly along the crisp edge of the countertop.

Upon reaching the end of the kitchen, she found herself facing large sliding glass doors which almost seemed to disappear, letting the nature beyond slip into the house. She stepped outside and noticed the water of the pool ripple. As she peered down into the water, she realized that it was a body swimming underneath the surface that was causing the ripples. She watched him swim, mesmerized by the movements.

Finally, he came up for air and saw her standing there in the sunlight watching him.

He pulled himself out of the pool and approached her, water dripping off his body. She did not need to say anything, she had come and that told him everything he needed to know. Ignoring the fact that he was wet, he pulled her into a tight embrace and just held her and the water seeped through her clothing.

After everything, as complicated as their situation had been, it ended in the simplest possible way; he left the door open for her and she came to him.


End file.
